This essay will give examples of racial events and social attitudes towards black people in the 1930's and will link it to racial events and social attitudes in "Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry".

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      Diverse Cultures English Coursework

                 

“Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry” is about the segregation of blacks and whites in Mississippi in the 1930’s. It is based around a black family called the Logan’s. The novelist Mildred Taylor has chosen to tell the story through the eyes of nine-year-old Cassie Logan who hasn’t yet realised the realities of living in a segregated society. This is shown when Cassie accidentally bumps into a ten year old white girl called Lillian Jean who then forces her to apologise.

“How come I gotta go ‘round calling her “Miz” like she grown up or something?”

This essay will give examples of racial events and social attitudes towards black people in the 1930’s and will link it to racial events and social attitudes in “Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry”

        

        The first racial incident we see in the novel is in chapter one. The four Logan children are walking to school and they meet T.J Avery, a young black boy. He tells the children that there was a burning at the Berry’s and that John and Beacon Berry and their relative Sallie Ann were at a gas station when they got hassled by some black boys, they drove away but the white boys caught up with them and set them alight. This shows us that the white people had no respect for blacks and they also thought they could get away with it. In the 1930’s the judicial system was very unfair and always took the side of the white people. This very violent behaviour was very typical of the Klu Klux Klan who were a racist hatred group in the 1930’s they dressed in white robes and pointed hoods and they terrorized anyone “Anti – American” people like Jews, Negros and Catholics.

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        Money was also a big issue. White people were wealthier than the blacks they also had better jobs and housing. The white children had school buses whilst black people had to walk to school and the white community’s school was quite lavish whilst the black school were only a few wooden houses.

“Consisting of four weather - beaten wooden houses on stilts of bricks”

The difference in wealth between the blacks and whites was because the county supported the white people and gave them money whilst they supported the black people very little and the small amount of money ...

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